Tuesday, June 17, 2008

In His Own Words

I thought that as a follow up to the New Berlin Redi-Mix incident I would let everyone see what I was up against when I contacted the Waukesha Sheriff's Department.

To be fair, after carefully considering all the information regarding this incident, I don't have an issue with no citation being issued in this case, and all my dealings with the Waukesha Sheriff's Department in the past have been positive. That however doesn't excuse the attitude of the Deputy I encountered on Saturday.

Below are some direct quotes from this Deputy.

"you have to be over, when cars are passing you, you have to be as far to the right as you possibly can be "

"For one thing you have plenty of shoulder there, I don’t know why you wouldn’t have moved over to the shoulder if you knew traffic was comin’?"

'Just out of curiosity, um seeing as you have an issue with cement trucks, why, now for the second time, or maybe 3rd time have you put yourself in harms way by riding down national and videotaping cement trucks? Just out of curiosity , I mean we have plenty of state trails man, we got the drumlin we got the ice age, we got eagle Franklin trail we got New Berlin’s trail you don’t have to ride down one of the busiest roadways in the county. "

"I’m just saying that on the side, ok, on the other side of the white line you have what approximately, what, two feet that you could have ridden on, I’m just wondering for curiosity’s sake why you wouldn’t do that?"

"I think these cement guys they were trying to be courteous of you , You can definitely see he moved over to try to avoid you, and there was an oncoming traffic and I mean cement trucks weigh a lot."

"I have buddies that ride on the roadway, and I think they’re stupid because, just personally because of all the horror stories I’ve heard from them about nearly gettin’ run of the road."

Just for the record, and I told the deputy this as well, it's not safe for me to be riding on a 18-24 inch shoulder when I'm going 30-35 mph. Also I don't ride the trails he cited because some are gravel and many of them are too short or don't go near my house. Also just for the record, I wasn't taping cement trucks, I was doing a training ride and the cement truck just happened to be the vehicle that buzzed me that day.

I've contacted his supervisor, but he is on vacation until late this month, so I probably will be contacting the Sheriff to discuss this further.

whether or not to press the incident? i guess its all up to how you felt about the environment you were in. video doesn't show that sixth sense we cyclists have when riding on the road. cuz, there are alot of things to be taken in consideration that cant be seen there. road condition, posted speed limits, traffic intensity, how courteous the other drivers have been up to that point. i have video, but i pick and choose my battles. and lately, i just haven't been riding in the places where something has gone down anymore. in fact, just last i saw a bunch of droopy drawer'd homies walking up ahead on my ride so i made a left on a dead end road, just to avoid any crap. people suck.